A Japanese hotel run almost entirely by robots is expanding to 100 locations — here's what it's like to stay there

There are more robots than staff at Japan's chain of Weird Hotels.Issei Kato/Reuters

In the southwestern city of Sasebo, Japan, a hotel run almost entirely by robots has been so successful in its two-year run that owners are now inspired to open 100 more locations around Japan.

Hideo Sawada has run the aptly named Weird Hotel as part of an amusement park since July 2015, but business has been so good that Sawada's travel agency H.I.S. Co. plans to expand to several more cities in the coming years and overseas within the next five.

"Having robots in charge of the reception and placing robots everywhere, we aim to make it the most efficient hotel in the world," Sawada told reporters in March, upon the opening of his second hotel, near Tokyo Disney Resort in Urayasu, Chiba Prefecture.